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Endeavour to Rendevous with ISSNews story originally written on December 1, 2000

Shuttle Endeavour blasted off on Thursday from Kennedy Space Center at 9:06 p.m. CST. The successful launch began the STS-97 shuttle mission. There are 5 men aboard the shuttle including Commander Brent W. Jett, Pilot Michael J. Bloomfield, Mission Specialists Joseph Tanner, Marc Garneau and Carlos Noriega. The shuttle is also carrying the first solar arrays for the space station.

The shuttle crew will work with the three-man crew aboard the Alpha space station.
Together the 8 men will install the huge solar arrays which will quintuple the station's electrical power. Three space walks will be performed to accomplish this task. The boost in electrical power will help power the many science experiments to be perfomed onboard the station. Eventually, there will be 3 sets of solar arrays.

The shuttle is scheduled to dock with the International Space Station on Saturday, at 1:57 CST. The shuttle will return to the Kennedy Space Center after 11 days in space.

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